


On Bread Alone

by allthegoodnamesaretakendammit



Category: The Great British Bake Off RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Dialogue-centric, F/M, Martha is 50 percent euphemism and 50 percent hyperbole, Paul is the world's least likely sex symbol, cuties being cute, oh my god so much dialogue, so wrong but so right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:22:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11533098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthegoodnamesaretakendammit/pseuds/allthegoodnamesaretakendammit
Summary: The two of them gossip about all kinds of things, things that Martha never would have guessed on her own. Apparently, Paul had caught a cold in the middle of taping season three and he could barely taste anything while judging, even after using every trick in the book to clear his system. "I was flying blind," he admits. "I focused on color and texture, but beyond that—I just repeated everything Mary said, only with different words." He looks at Mary's horrified face and concludes, "The scariest thing is that no one noticed."





	On Bread Alone

**Author's Note:**

> My only references for this were Martha's appearance on the show and the official GBB website. It struck me as weird to search for information about what's she's been up to since season five. After all, she consented to be under constant scrutiny for the duration of the show, but I felt uncertain about rifling through the details of her life for writing material--especially those events which occurred before or after filming. So if I get things wrong about her, that’s just fine. I also know nothing about Paul Hollywood or anyone else’s actual life, and I plan on keeping it that way. If anybody feels like this story needs Brit-picking, feel free to drop me a line in the comments about any specific errors you noticed. Thanks!

 

It’s four months after the Great British Stress-Fest and Martha’s doing alright, she really is. Still spending way too much time in the kitchen, still in her element there, still loving it, still learning.

She's expecting a call from Richard any minute now and she's trying to get these lemon brandy shortcakes in the oven before she gets distracted--because, in all honesty, all of her phone calls with fellow ex-contestants are incredibly distracting. The last time she called Nancy to ask her about her love life, Martha forgot to eat two separate meals.

She's just sliding her shortcakes into the oven when the phone rings and she jerks, whacking her hand against the hot rack. Martha's still blowing on the burn when she picks up the phone and says, "Hi, hello! Richard, how are you?"

"Oh, I'm wonderful. Helen turned seven just last week, so the kids have been quiet, focused on her new toys," he says, clearly having a lovely day, and his own cheerfulness makes her smile. Trying to focus something besides the reddening burn, Martha immediately directs them to their favorite topic of conversation: whining about people who recognize them from the telly. Richard warms to the subject, confessing: "Yesterday, one bloke made me eat his cake. Literally would not take no for an answer."

"What, at a party?" She wouldn't be surprised; that had happened to her at every party she'd been to since she was named as a contestant. She's starting to suspect that people are inviting her to their parties specifically to talk about their bakes. 

"No, no, he saw me walking down the street, recognized me, we got to chatting, and he says, 'My house is just up the street! And my tea cake just came out of the oven! You have to come take a look.' He was hopping up and down. Wouldn't accept anything but a yes.'"

"Goodness," she says, suddenly glad that no one has been so forceful about getting her opinion on their rubbish tea cakes and such. Of course, maybe if she had been a finalist--

She cuts off the thread of that thought quickly. Richard concludes his story, saying, "My opinion couldn't have helped, anyway. His cake tasted like Mary's perfume and looked like Paul had sat on it." Martha chokes on the leftover batter she's been 'sampling' from the bowl and they both laugh hard into the receivers, so much so that she has to pull the phone away from her face. She takes a moment to glance at her hand, and there it is: a red welt along the join of her thumb, a little wound that she just knows is going to refuse to heal.

 

*

 

A few months later, she's trying to make cheese puffs with Perroche and she has it on good authority that Neal’s Yard Creamery has, quote, "the only Perroche worth having." So she makes the two and a half hour trek over to the darling little country store in Hereford.

She's perusing the biscuit aisle when she spots a man in a blue button-up leaning over to inspect some of the paler cheeses; he turns his head and the short crop of salt and pepper hair confirms it. It's Paul Hollywood, out among the cheese-loving rabble.

And, well, Paul had never seemed to dislike her, exactly, so she shuffles over to say hello. Paul looks up when she's still a yard away and he smiles like he's actually glad to see her, so she smiles back, trying hard not to overthink it.

"Martha! How are you?"

"I'm very well, thank you. Fancy seeing you here," she says, laughing a little because it truly is an incredible coincidence. And then, after a moment of consideration, she asks: "You wouldn't happen to be here for Perroche, would you?"

Paul chuckles too and says, "Of course, they've got the only worthwhile Perroche on the island." He switches his basket to his other hand and tucks his hand into his pocket. "My sister's been pestering me all month for a quiche, so I decided to make a project of it and do five at once."

Martha asks a few polite questions about his sister and the next thing she knows, they're meandering down the aisles together, chatting about family and such. It should be boring, but it really, really isn't. And every time she thinks they've exhausted every possible topic of conversation and that he's just about to say he needs to get on with his other errands, one of them brings up Nancy's ambitious new flower garden or the price of pine nuts these days and off they go.

And finally, after what has to be at least an hour of talking and pretending to peruse the store's biscuit options, Paul says he's got to go get his quiches ready by 5:00, which will be a bit of a challenge since he's doing a different filling for each of them. "Oh, that sounds really adventurous," Martha says. And on a whim, she adds, "Let me know how it turns out?"

He looks pleased and surprised--surprisingly pleased. Pleasingly surprised, too. "Sure, I'd love to. Ah, what's your email address?"

So she digs around her bag for a pen and scrap paper, scribbles down her email address in what she's sure is her worst chicken scratch, and hands it to him, suddenly feeling very shy. "So, thanks. And, um, good luck with your quiche. Not that you need it! But, yes, best of luck with it."

She glances up at him and he gives her a genuine Hollywood smile when he says, "Thanks, Martha." He looks at his watch and says, "And now I really better be off."

She smiles--because she suspects it takes a really good conversation to make Paul Hollywood lose track of time--and says, "Bye, then."

"Bye," he says and then he disappears around the corner, headed for the register. Well, she thinks to herself, that was all very unexpected.

 

*

 

She gets an email later that night with no subject line and three pictures featuring pristine, magazine-ready quiches: one of them all lined up on the cooling rack, one where a courgette-laden quiche is just being sliced into, and one where that slice is half-eaten on some lucky person's plate. She answers with what she hopes isn't a too effusive reply, taking particular care to compliment him on the color. Fifteen minutes later, he replies with two very expert questions about her cheese puffs and a smiling emoji, the one with closed eyes. It actually makes her squeal out loud because--Paul! Smiling! Emoji!

Whatever else happens this year, this emoji is never, ever going to stop smiling at her and that's really worth something, she thinks.

 

*

 

Five weeks later, they've settled into a pretty regular correspondence, where she'll send him pictures of her nascent herb garden and the juicier bits of information on the former contestants from her tent (Jordan got a tattoo of his cheesecake brioche on his bum! Quite tasteless, they agree), and he'll send her pictures of his bakes and, at her urging, begins captioning them. Paul also, as it turns out, does a fair bit of traveling, so she also receives a few lovely pictures of faraway places, especially from airplane windows. She just loves how smooth everything looks from up there, how the world runs out of wrinkles if you stand back far enough.

 

*

 

It's a couple weeks before Easter when she's lazing about, staring out at the torrential rain as she chats on the phone with Iain. As Martha now insists to anyone who will ask, he's really very nice once you get to know him. He's very--what's the phrase? _Emotionally intelligent._ The way he explained it to her, it seems like he understands emotions pretty well; he just has trouble getting a leash on them sometimes.

Which is essentially the heart of the story he's telling her now: "And, of course, her entire glass of white wine ended up all over me. My brother, well, he tried to lighten the mood by yelling, 'At least it's not red!' People laughed a little and I know it was at him, but it didn't feel that way. So I. You know, I blew up at her. And I could just see what everyone was thinking: it's the Baked Alaska all over again."

There's a brief pause as he seems to try to find the right words. "I'm just embarrassed, you know? Everyone thinks of me as that guy who has tantrums, and what do I do? I," he blows a pixelly-sounding sigh into the receiver. "I have a tantrum. An excess of emotions. Whatever."

"Oh, Iain," Martha sighs, fishing for something to say that's both true and will make him feel better. "I can't say what other people think. I just hope you know that I don't think of you that way. Anyone who really knows you would know better."

"Yeah, that. That does help, thank you, Martha. You were there in the thick of it, after all. You get it. You understand what it's like to have the wrong feelings at the wrong time, when you're under scrutiny like that--"

"What?" she says, totally confused. Iain sounds confused now, too.

"I just meant--I mean. I don't mean to embarrass you; it just seemed really obvious to me? You know I'm in no place to judge, anyway. You feel what you feel, and you try to be a responsible adult about it. It's all we can do, really."

"I, um. Okay, Iain," she says, now completely lost and feeling like a child who wandered over to the adult's table at dinner. Just when she thought she'd figured him out. What a mystery, that Iain.

 

*

 

And when she really, really wants to torture herself, she'll watch a few minutes of it. Just to see, you know, how she came across. And she thinks she came across pretty well, all things considered. But her hair always looked such a mess! And she wants to tell herself to stop chewing her bottom lip, eleven months after the fact.

It’s endlessly fascinating but she also dies a little inside, watching her feet kick on the high stool like she’s seven, watching her meat pie spring a leak, and watching herself literally have her hand held by Chetna after the great eclair disaster. And then she watches herself cry on national television. Martha covers her face with her hands until she realizes she can just press the pause button. She really has to stop doing this. Paul would laugh at her if he knew, she thinks. Martha's got a firm enough grip on his sense of humor to say that he would find this habit of hers hilarious--because she was there, so what should it matter what the telly shows?

But it matters somehow. It does.

 

*

 

"We always talk about my love life! Tell me about yours," Nancy demands, two minutes into their next phone call. Martha already feels embarrassed and she hasn't even said anything incriminating yet.

"I, well, I'm not seeing anyone at the moment."

"At the moment? Well, that leaves some room for possibility, doesn't it," Nancy posits, no doubt doing something very impressive with an orange peel on the other side of the phone. "You've got some men in your life, yes?"

"Ah yes, there's my old school mates, my Da, my neighbors, and... " Martha trails off, fiddling with the loose string on the couch cushion. "I think I may have become pen pals with Paul Hollywood."

"Goodness!" Nancy is almost yelling now, but she sounds very pleased. "You should have led with that! Yes, well. Pen pals with Paul! How exciting. What do you chat about?"

"Oh, this and that," Martha says, feeling very thoroughly embarrassed now. "Baking and travel, mostly. Gossip, sometimes." She takes a deep breath and confesses, "I guess I'm still surprised he even takes the time, honestly." Oh god, she sounds insecure, doesn't she? She definitely does.

"Oh dear, you're a lovely conversationalist. No need to doubt that. Besides, Paul has always liked you." Martha splutters a little into the phone. "Well, he was obviously very fond of you," Nancy says, as if it was exactly as obvious as she said it was. "I think everyone saw that."

"Oh," Martha says, feeling a little woozy and overly warm. "They did?"

"Yes, love, of course they did. You're the lovable sort, and you're a fine baker to boot."

Martha is extremely hesitant to put what she's feeling into words, but: "I mean, I know I'm pretty good, but I... don't know that I'm... a colleague, in his eyes." Martha clears her throat, feeling upset at losing all over again--and after all this time, too! She rubs at her eyes preemptively, even though there are no tears there, and finishes. "I'm not on his radar as a peer, I don't think."

"What, and I am?" Nancy says, sounding surprisingly sharp. "Martha, I think it should be clear to all of us that in baking, no one is Paul's peer but Mary Berry. I shouldn't think that means he doesn't see you as an equal otherwise. Yes?"

Martha sits quietly for a moment, trying not to say anything stupid. She opens her mouth and what falls out is: "But I didn't win." Christ in Heaven.

"Hold it right there, miss," Nancy snaps. "I might have won the competition, but I didn't steal his heart." Martha feels frozen, feels a kind of pain behind her eyes, along with--a smile? She's in shock, she realizes. But, and now she feels her face getting red and hot, is it really so shocking? Hadn't she _known_ \--she shakes her head because it's too much, it’s just too much.

"I--" she begins, and then realizes she has nothing to say. Nancy clearly realizes this and carries on as if there are two fully functioning, emotionally competent women having this conversation. "Now tell me how your basil is coming along." Martha does. And then they talk about a hundred other safe little things until they say goodbye. When Martha finally puts the phone aside, she just stares at the wall for a while. After the fact, this conversation seems... fateful? But not bad.

She lets gravity guide her sideways onto the couch cushions and lays there, thinking: by God, could Paul Hollywood have the same hopeless crush on her that she has on him? Because then, maybe, it wouldn't be so hopeless.

 

*

 

She can't get it out of her head. What if they're both crazy people who have a thing for people they should not, could never, and will never have? What if they're both being shy idiots?

So she tries to test the waters: she invites him over to lunch at her flat this upcoming Saturday. She knows it's an hour's drive from his home in Bicester, so she promises him some of the best Indian take-out in town. He emails back, saying, _I'd love to. What should I bring?_

 

*

 

When Saturday arrives, she feels that this is all happening very quickly and her jitteriness simply will not go away. The take-out arrives five minutes before he does, so she plates it and sets the whole steaming mess of it on her dining room table. She takes a moment to appreciate the fact that her flat hasn't been this clean since she moved in.

“Age is just a number,” she chants to herself. “Age is just a number. Age is just a--” And then the doorbell rings and the panic is back.

He's brought a dry Riesling--because of course Paul knows the only wine that truly pairs well with Indian curry.

It's easy, is the thing. Yes, she still has a few nerves, but it's just him and her, and the conversation flows smoothly, directionless.

"You know, it's funny to be eating something neither of us baked,” she notes, spinning her fork around in the curry left on her plate.

“It would be stranger if we actually were eating something one of us had baked,” he answers through a bite of naan, and they both huff quiet laughter over it, this enormous thing sitting between them.

 

*

 

Martha knows she's dreaming. That doesn't make the dream any less engaging. There are tables and tables, all in periwinkle, pale mint, and blue--the same blue of her veins through the skin of her wrists. Everything was calm until the black sheep all stormed into the tent and ate their cakes and everyone got knocked out of the competition, so Mary got the cake-stand and Paul got the flowers. And then the perspective got wonky and she found herself looking down on a tent in a hidden garden in a green park on a tiny cold island on a big blue marble. And suddenly, it all seemed very small.

 

*

  

Soon, lunch becomes a regular event for them, him driving down to East Berkshire every other week for an hour or three of food and conversation. The emails slow, but never cease, and, if anything, it seems like his pictures only get more and more impressive. She sees his view of dawn breaking over the Atlantic from what she's sure is a very nice seat in First Class and she wonders what it would be like to be in the seat next to him, just then, hearing the yawns of sleepy, miserable passengers and watching Paul make no attempt to hide his total contempt for airplane food. It's a weird thing to fantasize about, but she wants that with him. God help her, she really does.

 

*

 

That September, for the first time ever, they opt to have dinner together instead of lunch. He comes over just as she's finishing up her grandmother's beautiful, hearty beef stew and, unfortunately, it looks like her subconscious mind has taken the liberty of translating "dinner" to "meal that precludes declarations of romance." She has never spent as much time deciding on a flavor of chapstick as she did this afternoon, and the kitchen is one candle away from possessing real ambiance.

And now Paul's leaning against the counter and the kitchen is filled with savory scents that make her feel giddy and warm. This will be their first meal without a single grain or baked good involved, and the oddity of that hits her all at once. She's stirring the stew one last time and she turns to Paul in a moment of total honesty and confesses through a laugh, "This still feels wrong."

Paul frowns deeply and suddenly looks so, so sad. And then a look of comprehension flashes across his face, and he aims a wide smile at the floor. "Yes, well. I didn't exactly assume that you lived off of scones alone."

She giggles a little and turns off the heat, then conscripts Paul to grab the bowls from the high cabinet. (The good china, because her mum would never let her come home again if she learned that Martha had ever served Paul Hollywood food in her everyday chipped orange crockery.) She's ladling his serving into the bright blue china, loving the way the steam curls around her face, when she has a very important realization. She turns to him in a state of total panic and blurts, "Oh no, I didn't mean--"

The soup is sloshing around in its bowl so he steadies her hand--and she's in such a fit that she can't even enjoy it properly because she has to explain, "I meant about eating food together! Real food, I mean! Not that cake isn't real food, it's just." She draws a ragged breath, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel--" She bites her lip. "Bad."

He looks at her from under his eyebrows and she knows that look--the assessing one. She thought it was an expression he wore just for the camera and for judging crumb structure, but apparently not. Whatever he sees on her face, it makes his brows lift and he gently takes the bowl from her, saying. "It's fine, Martha."

Somehow, she believes him.

 

*

 

And finally, he invites her over to his own house--giving her a chance to alleviate her guilt for making him drive two hours round-trip every other week. Martha can't say she envies the experience, herself. Her legs feel stiff by the time she pulls up to the stately grey stone house flanked by well-kept greenery. She parks out front and gives the door a ring, a bottle of Beaujolais tucked under her arm--which she has been assured "goes with practically everything."

He ushers her in and promptly guides her to the kitchen, and the interior is as tasteful and carefully arranged as the outside. Martha does, however, feel quite faint when she sees his spice cabinet. "Do you have a directory for it?" she asks and he chuckles, not even a bit embarrassed. "Do you offer guided tours?"

"Not usually, but I don't mind giving you one." During the ensuing thirty-minute tour, she learns two things. First, that Paul owns an ungodly amount of saffron and an entire menagerie of yeast cultures. Second, that he is a rather... _smug_ man, but she finds it charming, at least on him.

After dinner, they sit on his living room couch, which is so white that it dares them to leave a stain on it.

Martha couldn't say what they had for dinner that evening, which is a real shame because Paul would hate to think that anything he made isn't memorable. But it isn't his fault, really, because all she can think about is her plan to be a confident 21st-century woman who makes the first move.

And she's not sure if it's the change of scenery or the endless waiting or the clear effort Paul has put into making sure this evening goes right, but she feels it: real potential, crackling between them right now, impossible to deny and equally hard to speak about. But she has to say something, she just has to.

Which is why, halfway through Paul's no doubt hilarious story about his sister's dog pilfering fifteen gingersnaps, Martha puts a hand up to stop him and stares hard at the spot over Paul's shoulder while she says, as clearly as she can, "I like you. A lot. And I want to keep doing this, or maybe more than this--" Her face is on fire, Christ on a cracker. "- -But I really, really need to know if you. Feel the same. Because that would be lovely. But I--I, um, don't want to assume one way or the other about it." She deserves a medal, she really does. It feels like she just shaved a year off her lifespan. Martha congratulates herself by taking a deep breath and then lets her eyes drift up to Paul's face. Oh, he's smiling. That's a good sign, isn't it?

"You're smiling," she says.

"Yes, well. I like you a lot, too," Paul answers, sounding very, very pleased at this turn of events. "I didn't want to assume you felt one way or another, either." And then, oh God, he takes her hand in his and Martha uses her other hand to cover her face. Tender gestures! Secret affections! She is simply not built to weather these things.

"Am I embarrassing you?" he asks gently, her hand warm between his.

"Oh, no! I'm just overwhelmed. At the moment." Martha and brushes her hair out of her eyes. "I mean--yes, a little." She looks up at him and says, "You're just very much, you know?"

Hearing that seems to make him happy, so she continues: "And I've had a lovely time with our emails and luncheons and such, but we've been dancing around this forever, only I wasn't sure if we were dancing - -" Martha sighs. "And, at the end of the day, all I really wanted to do was be there for the things you were talking about in your emails and maybe have a snog on the couch." The sexual tension in the room seems to rachet up immediately. Is she not supposed to say that sort of thing out loud, even though they've both already as good as said it?

"Martha," Paul says and, wow, his voice sounds different. Lower somehow. There is a moment of quiet reflection. Paul seems to read her nervousness, and he sits back, his face relaxing as he asks, "Did you rehearse that? Your announcement?" Martha, who truly felt that her face was as hot as it could ever be, is proud to state all personals bests have been bested this evening.

"I--yeah. I did, yes." She meets his eyes and asks. "What did you think?"

Paul says, "I liked it. Very direct."

"Good. I, um. Was hoping to come off as sincere and mature." She clears her throat. "I want to be thought of as mature. I know that you're--" Martha searches for the right words. "Older than me."

"Much," Paul adds, looking rueful.

"I don't mind! I mean, I like it." That doesn't sound quite right. "I mean, I like you, so I like it." He smooths his thumb over the back of her hand and she suddenly realizes that they've been holding hands this entire time. "Oh goodness. Please just hold me so you can't see how red my face is." And he does. He puts an arm around her shoulders as she scoots over to his corner of the couch. Martha wraps her arms around his middle and rests her hot cheek against his chest.

The creaking of the upholstery quiets and Paul runs his hand between her shoulder blades. "This is nice," she sighs into the pale blue of his shirt.

"It is," he agrees. And they spend the rest of the evening like that, curled up on the couch because they truly have nothing better to do.

Or, put less romantically, it's another hour of that before Martha has the wherewithal to pry herself away and make for home. Paul walks her to her car and she stands there on the driver’s side, fidgeting with her keys and making them jangle loudly in the quiet dusk, not sure what to say to commence the goodnight kiss she dearly wants.

And, after a moment of contemplation, he takes a step forward and she tips her head back so that they can watch each other’s eyes close as he leans in. And they kiss right there in his front yard, and Martha’s world collapses into only the most pertinent details: the rasp of his beard against her bare cheek, the heat of him all along her front, and his soft, dry lips pressing against hers with such tenderness, such carefulness. He rubs her shoulders as he pulls away and she manages to squeak out, “That was lovely, thanks! Let’s do it again sometime, bye,” before she gets into her car and puts the key into ignition.

She spends the whole journey home driving one-handed, the other running over her stinging lips, her body still trying to make her believe it.

 

*

 

A week later, Martha has Kate on speakerphone while she slogs her way through making blueberry and lavender frozen custard. The first batch was rubbish, but she's got a good feeling about this one. Martha asks after little Eloise as she starts measuring the blueberries.

"She still wants to go to Paris," Kate laughs. "She’s been haranguing me about it ever since I read her those silly books.”

Well, dreams really do come true, Martha thinks. So maybe Eloise isn’t so terribly misguided to be adamant about an enduring dream.

After about a half hour of that, Kate’s home-baking business comes a-calling and they say their goodbyes. Paul is due to arrive in twenty minutes, so Martha shelves the frozen custard and starts in on dinner. As Martha whips up a star fruit salad for the both of them, she can’t help but watch the storm front roll in over the neighborhood through her kitchen window.

When Paul arrives, they tuck in and gossip about all kinds of things, things that Martha never would have guessed on her own. Paul confesses, for instance, that he had caught a cold in the middle of taping season three and he could barely taste anything while judging, even after using every trick in the book to clear his system. "I was flying blind," he admits. "I focused on color and texture, but beyond that--I repeated everything Mary said, just with different words." He looks at Martha's horrified face and concludes, "The scariest thing is that no one noticed."

Paul laughs for five minutes when Martha admits that when he’d harangued her about the risks of putting an egg wash on rye without explaining why, she had kept it on not because she’d said she would or because she thought it would end well, but purely to spite him.

That is to say, they have a lovely evening full of revelations, but the storm worsens and they conclude that their best option is for him to sleep on her couch. It’s a very comfortable couch, at least. In the morning, she's treated to the sight of his bedhead, rumpled and unbearably dear. She sends him home after a full English breakfast and with terrible creases in his dress shirt.

 

*

 

The next time she visits his house, nobody sleeps on the couch. Although, they do settle onto his living room couch to polish off their last helping of ginger cake with candied apricots. She’s wearing a dress for once and, thanks to a sudden burst of optimism earlier in the day, her favorite pair of knickers.

The rattling of forks on plates is the only sound in the room as they set their empty dishes on the coffee table at roughly the same moment, and Martha says, “Can we--”

“Yes,” he answers and she feels real kinship with him in that moment because she knows that feeling, when all of the patience in her body is condensed and it still isn’t enough, when the words just seem to get in the way. So they meet on the middle couch cushion and she cups the back his head to pull him closer for a kiss.

Paul's hair is smooth to touch, not sharp or anything, despite all the product. She buries her fingers in it, dragging her nails over his scalp, loving the way he kisses her harder for it. And suddenly, there is tongue involved and she’s lightheaded with it, the sweep of his tongue against hers. They both taste gingery and lovely and for once in her life, she’s not worried over whether or not she’s got something caught in her teeth--she just feels wanted and warm and so wonderfully alive.

And then there’s the sounds: the bristly noises of his beard, their mouths clicking wetly, and her plait swinging over her shoulder with a rustle as she winds her arms around his neck. When they finally part for air, she can’t help but be endeared by the bit of sunburn she spots on the tips of his ears. She kisses them both as softly as she is able and he chuckles, and then she’s swept up again in the hot press of his lips.

It’s minutes and minutes of kissing later when his hands slide over her ribcage, and he kneads his thumbs into the tender space just under her breasts until Martha's got the shakes and everything's gotten ten degrees hotter. She touches his pearly shirt buttons with madly trembling fingers and opens her mouth to ask him to start removing his clothing now, please, if he doesn’t mind. She doesn't get the chance because that’s when he skates over her lower left side where she's ticklish and she instinctively twists away, landing on the far end of the couch in a heap. He looks at her, a laugh ready to tumble out and looking like he’s half-tempted to try that again.

“Don’t,” she says. “Just don’t.” He raises his hands in a gesture of innocence, so she slides closer again, letting her sandals slip off her feet with a clack. When she gets near enough, his arms come around her and he tucks his face just beneath her jaw and mouths at the sensitive skin there until she’s well and truly relaxed again. So relaxed in fact, that she lets a few moans slip out before she even realizes it. Because she can’t get angry at herself for it because, if anything, it’s those very sounds that encourage him to start rubbing her leg in time with the searing kisses he’s leaving on her neck. He palms her knee and gradually moves higher up her thigh, rucking up the hem of her dress and something about it is making her breath hard as she curls her fists in his shirt.

Her whole body is humming with it now--the rough drag of his palm in studied contrast to what his mouth is doing to her throat, gentle where he doesn't have to be. Then Paul leaves a particularly toothy kiss on the place where her collarbone meets her neck and she can feel herself getting wet, and she spares a single, fleeting thought that perhaps she shouldn’t have worn her very favorite knickers tonight after all. She scrapes her nails down his back on accident, simply needing an outlet for this feeling building up inside her, but he groans like he loves it. So she does it again, starting high on his back and raking lightly down his spine through the fine material of his shirt.

“God, Martha,” he groans, sounding about as desperate as she feels. And they stare into each other’s eyes as he slowly moves to cup her breast, dragging his thumb over the hidden shape of her nipple underneath two layers of clothing, and then, at the stunned sound she makes, he tweaks it and tweaks it again. By then, his other hand is finally high enough to touch the band of her knickers where it wraps around the seam of her waist and thigh.

“Bed,” she gasps.

“Bed,” he agrees.

When they get to his bedroom and he flicks on the overhead light to its lowest setting, it’s plain to see that his bedroom is already in an artful disarray. She wants to tease him and tell him that she just knew his whole house couldn’t be as pristine as his kitchen, but he’s already shucking off his shirt to reveal the white undershirt beneath and she can hardly speak because of the shape of his back, visible through the thin white cotton and dramatized by the evening light.

He sits on the bed with a creak and she follows, shuffling forward until his back is against the lacquered red wood of the headboard and—before she can second guess it or let her doubts slow her down—she crawls on top of him and spreads herself over his lap, her dress hiking up with the motion. His hands glide up her outer thighs as she kneels there and he looks up at her like she’s maybe some kind of miracle. So she leans down and kisses him like the miracle he definitely is.

Martha loops her arms over his shoulders again and their tongues do wet, confusing things that make her pulse thunder between her legs. With her knees on either side of him like this, it’s easy as anything to furtively rub herself down on the bulge in his trousers. The pressure is simple and unbelievably satisfying and they moan into each other’s mouths as his denim scrapes against her thighs while she rocks back and forth. Her legs are already straining with the effort it takes to do it slowly, lightly.

Martha can tell, she can tell that he’s not going to take it any further unless she asks, but she just doesn’t have the words. So she swallows her shyness and wraps her hand around his arm, moving it closer to where she wants it. Martha slides her hand down his wrist and tugs his hand over to the front panel of her knickers, and just that, his fingers laying flat against her, makes her sigh and rest her forehead against his shoulder.

They spend a few minutes just like that, her listing against him as he traces the shape of her through her knickers. When she can’t take it anymore, she covers his fingers with hers and guides his hand back and forth, playing with her clit softly, just like she likes it. And she’s sighing again, slumping forward with satisfaction now that she’s finally gotten a little relief. Splayed over him like this, it’s more obvious that he’s got a bit of extra around the middle, and she likes that; it makes this easier. She’s got something to lean her weight against, and she wonders at the coarseness of the hair on his arm as she drags her thumb through it.

After a few glorious minutes of that, the heat starts building and she guides his hand again, pushing aside her knickers for his finger to rub right over her opening. Against his chest like this, it’s impossible not to notice the way Paul’s breathing picks up, the way he seems just as excited as she is, in this lazy, overly warm sort of way.

“You’re sure?” he asks, voice sounding rough.

“I’m sure,” she whispers into his shirt, long past being flustered or confused about this. His broad index finger circles gently, then pushes inside. That’s about the time she starts dripping in earnest, letting quiet noises fall out her mouth. She rocks into it, gets him to push deeper and press another finger inside. Egregious squelching noises ensue, but she doesn’t care because this feels amazing and she knows Paul thinks so, too, because he says, “You feel incredible.”

All she can get her mouth to answer with is the breathless gasp of, “More!” What she meant was, _Could you add another finger, please?_ But apparently, that’s not how he heard it because he just presses his two fingers deeper and hooks them, curling and twisting them in a searching motion for a long half-minute where Martha can barely think from the way she’s being stretched. Between one breath and the next, he’s found exactly the nerve he was looking for and he fingers it deftly, making her jolt and keen in one sharp sound of pleasure. He chuckles and prods it once, twice--

She comes hard, gasping and clenching on his fingers. Her knees giving out on her, leaving her crumpled, ruddied up and fully seated on his lap now. Through the haze, she hears herself make a high, outrageous noise as he slowly drags his fingers out of her.

Martha is so, so tired, but she insists on giving him a blow job that she can only vaguely remember later. And even then, only in snatches: sheets sliding under her knees as she scooted down, the way he'd sprung from his boxers once she got him all unzipped, the ache in her jaw, the jerk of his hips as she followed the proud vein running up the underside, how he'd let her do pretty much whatever she liked to the most sensitive part of him. And then there was the way he'd groaned through orgasm, and the rush of bitterness, the soreness of her lips. Paul had tucked himself away and kissed her, for once having no concern for the flavor profile. Then he pulled a hard lemon candy out of his bedside table and made her eat it so that her mouth wouldn’t taste quite so horrifying in the morning, and they fell asleep sticky and curled up in each other on top of the covers.

She’s in five different kinds of love with this man, she really is.

 

*

 

The next month is a blur of snow and ice and sex and pastries and talking on the phone when they can’t be together and lots of snogging when they can.

In early December, Martha drops by Lincolnshire and meets all five of Nancy's children and all eight of her grandchildren. They have a grand old time, crunching on homemade caramel corn in the sunroom and watching her hens cluck and strut all over the yard. When they finally get a moment alone, Martha works up the nerve to tell Nancy about developments on the romantic front.

"Paul likes me," Martha blurts out, apropos of nothing.

Nancy doesn't laugh at her. She's such a good friend.

"Paul likes you," Nancy affirms.

Martha rubs her knuckles against her mouth and says, "I like Paul."

"You like Paul?" Nancy asks, sounding thrilled.

"I like Paul. We’ve, ah, decided to see each other. Romantically."

"Well, this is progress! By Christmas you'll be admitting that you're a top-notch baker and that you're as pretty as anyone could want to be."

Martha feels alarmed by how immensely flattered she is. "That's not--"

"It’s good news, anyway," Nancy quickly interjects. "Tell me, what's he like?" she asks, her voice full of curiosity and suggestion.

"You know what he's like. You've met him," Martha answers.

"No, no. I mean, _what's he like?_ "

Martha should feel appalled at the question, but instead she's just glad that she has an excuse to talk about the thing that's been taking up approximately 80% of her brain power. "Well, you know Paul," she says, taking a preemptively embarrassed sip of tea. "He likes to eat."

"Of course he likes to eat. He's--" Nancy stops. "Oh my!" She bursts out in a fit of incredibly girlish giggles. "Dear me! He likes to eat, does he?"

"He does," Martha says, flustered but pleased with herself and Paul and Nancy and the invention of tea and basically the whole world.

 

*

 

One sunny afternoon in March, there’s a season five reunion at a posh French café in Coventry. They rented out the whole space so that the group could have a bit of privacy as they hug each newcomer and recount kitchen-related traumas and so on. Mel and Sue are in rare form, sword-fighting with the unlit candelabras and calling each other names in sloppy French. They corner Martha in no time, making puns about her lemon yellow cardigan and asking her who she’s kept in touch with in the meantime. 

“I’ve had lots of phone calls with most everybody, but Paul and I have kept in touch most,” Martha says.

“Ooh, and what’s that like? Does he rate you on how interesting your life is? Does he interrupt your jokes halfway through and tell you that they’re half-baked?” Mel asks.

“No, nothing like that,” she laughs, but their overwhelming friendliness makes her confess, "Sometimes it's like I'm watching a nature documentary. You know, observing Paul Hollywood in his natural habitat. His grooming habits and all that."

Mel and Sue burst into laughter and Sue says, "Surely his grooming habits can't be all that interesting?"

"Well, he does spend a lot of time on his hair in the morning. Especially his goatee."

They look at each other, then lean in together and say in their most insinuating fashion, " _In the morning?_ " 

Martha experiences a minor implosion. She can feel herself turn beet red and is flustered beyond words, saying, “Oh my gosh, um! You--! I should,” she jerks her thumb in a random direction and swiftly turns to follow it. She’s only made it three steps before she’s caught in a Mel and Sue sandwich for the second time in her life. It’s just as surreal and overwarm as she remembers, and they sway back and forth a little as they chant her name. “Martha, Martha, Martha,” they sing-song.

“So you’ve snuggled the great orange, grizzled teddy bear.”

“So you’ve seen for yourself that his hair's got more product than our GDP.”

“That’s all fine with us, my dove.”

“Here, have some comfort food,” Mel says, putting a forkful of cheesecake in front of Martha’s face. Martha eats it in the hope that it will prevent her from saying anything else, at least for a little while.

The hug ends, and Sue keeps her arm around Martha, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. Then she looks at Martha over the top of her glasses with an utterly serious expression and asks, "Are you ever tempted to sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas?"

"No!" Martha answers, horrified. Then she takes a moment to think about it. "Sometimes," she amends, now even more horrified. "But I wouldn't! He's a bit sore about his age."

“I am not!” Norman hollers from a few tables over, clearly having caught only the last piece of their chat. Up until this point, he was apparently deep in conversation with Kate, who’s still tan from her family vacation along the Seine.

A bell chimes softly as the front door opens, and Mel says in a harsh, excited whisper: “Luis’s brought his ukulele!”

“Of course he did. Didn’t you ask him to?” Sue says.

“I didn’t think he’d actually do it!” Mel answers, and then she rushes over with Sue at her side and immediately makes Luis play ABBA so that she can sing along. Martha couldn’t name the ABBA tune, but she knows it’s the first track on the album _Gold_ \--so if she had to guess, Mel intends to work her way through the whole record.

Martha sees Paul at least twice a week now, so perhaps it’s a bit shameful for her to seek him out at an event full of people whom she largely hasn’t seen in two years, but she needs his steadying influence, she truly does.

It’s only the work of a moment to spot Paul and Mary chatting out on the patio. One of the interesting side-effects of being a TV personality, Martha has noticed, is that Paul always speaks in a loud, clear voice, as though he's trying to make sure that the mics can pick up everything he's saying--even when there are no mics around. Mary seems to have acquired this habit, too, because Martha can hear almost everything they're saying through the glass door.

"I've had a crush on Sue for years," Mary says. "Doesn't make me a villain."

"Really? Sue?"

"Her hair," Mary sighs. "Sheer perfection."

Martha figures that now is as safe a time as any to stop eavesdropping and join their conversation. When she walks up to them, it’s all perfectly cordial and they spend a good five minutes admiring Mary's trendy new haircut and at the end of it, Mary railroads Martha into promising that she'll try Mary's favorite salon. Which, naturally, is called Shear Perfection. It seems like becoming a minor celebrity just necessarily involves putting up with a lot of punning and meeting to lovely people that Martha can scarcely believe know her name. But Christ, they all know it now.

 

*

 

A month later, they’re making rhubarb hand pies in his kitchen and bandying back and forth plans to visit her favorite cousin in Naples next April, and Martha realizes: that's a year from now.

She turns to him with a smile that actually hurts her face and he smiles back, raising an eyebrow at her and maybe laughing on the inside about how confusing she is. Martha walks up to him and hugs him hard, resting her chin on his shoulder and just savoring the warmth of him. His arms come around her, too, and after a moment she can feel him fiddling with the knot of her apron. What a fussy, fussy man, she thinks, and she hugs him harder.

"What's this about then?"

"We--" she sighs happily and reaches around him to flick the kettle off. "We're stable. We really, really want to be together. For a long time. We're planning things out a year ahead of time like it's obvious--like it's inevitable that we'll still be together." She pulls back from him a little so she can look him in the eye. "And it's not, I know that's not how relationships work, but."

He looks happy and thoughtful, like he understands now, too. He finishes her thought: "We don't just want this to work--we plan on it."

"Yes, exactly!" she bursts out.

"Martha," he says.

"Paul."

He tucks her hair behind her ear and says, "Would you like to postpone lunch and make love on the kitchen table?"

"Yes, please!" And they fly around the kitchen, gently shoving ingredients back into the refrigerator and clearing off the table as fast as they can, and Martha thinks that the kitchen is meant for eating, anyway--and if this is wrong, if it doesn't work, if it's not right, then she's alright with making mistakes and she's alright with throwing her chips down and hoping for the best. God, she is so much more than alright.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me sooooooooo happy. That's all I'm going to say about that.


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